Biography

Bart's character folder in the Hall of Records on The Simpsons website.

Bart's a self-proclaimed underachiever constantly in detention. He's easily distracted (even, strangely enough, by algebraic equations). His penchant for shocking people began before he was born: Bart "mooned" Dr. Hibbert while he performed a sonogram on Marge, and moments after being born, he set fire to Homer's tie. His blood type's the very rare Double O Negative (OO-);[5] only he and Mr. Burns are known to have it.

Bart's a polyglot and can speak several languages with varying degrees of fluency. Though he hasn't demonstrated the ability since his trip to France as an exchange student, he speaks near-perfect French.[7] He also learned Spanish in a matter of hours in preparation for the family's trip to Brazil.[8] Upon learning Brazilians speak Portuguese and not Spanish, Homer orders his son to forget what he learned, prompting Bart to strike himself over the head until he forgot the language. Bart also speaks Japanese (which he also learned in a couple of hours in prison along with Homer, and is also shown speaking Japanese,[9] Cantonese and Latin. His advanced linguistic skills may be inherited from Homer, who also speaks advanced languages, including penguin. He was also shown to be a skilled drummer.[10] He was a player in the Mighty Pigs Peewee Hockey League Team. He's also quite capable of firing advanced firearms with a frighteningly immense amount of accuracy, as evidenced when, while at Military School as a result of a prank involving bullhorns, he was given a RGB6 Grenade Launcher by the firing range instructor due to his belief Bart will have most likely known how to operate handguns, and managed to destroy four of five targets before one of his shots missed and ended up hitting Principal Skinner's car just as he was about to unlock it, and Bart implied he deliberately missed the fifth target and was actually aiming for Skinner's car that time.[11] He later displayed a similar proficiency towards weapons when he managed to hijack a tank by stealing the keys, drive it over to the park, and managed to shoot down a MLB satellite with surprising accuracy all by himself. Although at that point, he was also under the effects of an experimental drug supposed to suppress his Attention Deficit Disorder.[12]

Homer strangling Bart

Bart can also drive vehicles with surprising skill for his age. He has his own driving license, given to him after saving Springfield from a fire.[13] Although he was seen driving before with a fake license at times.[14] He still possesses it, using it to steal Principal Skinner's car to get to Jimbo's house.[15]

He's the most misunderstood of the family, constantly frustrated by the narrow-minded people of Springfield, who judge him merely by his thoughts and actions.

Bart's also a skilled chef. He cooked a three course meal for his parents and made a dessert.[16]

When he was made Hall Monitor, he also had a great degree of skill in enforcing the law and rules.[17] This trait was later exemplified when he, in a similar fashion to a bouncer, removed Homer Simpson from the premises of the La Maison Derrière after he continuously heckled Marge's ventriloquist performance.[18]

Behavior

"I can't believe that it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows"

Bart's considerably motivated in disrupting the routine at Springfield Elementary, and his pranks are often elaborately complex, but can lead to unfortunate consequences. Despite his behaviour, his actions and speech frequently show considerable mental agility, street-smarts, and understanding. When Bart became a hall monitor for Springfield Elementary, his grades went up, showing he only struggles because he doesn't pay any attention.[19] Bart suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder[12]
On the other hand, Bart often seems to have trouble understanding even the simplest concepts, like the word "irony", what the equator is and the logo on his globe ("Rand McNally") isn't actually a country. It was also once implied his mischievous behavior may have been a result of Marge accidentally ingesting a droplet of champagne while pregnant with him.[20]

Labeled as an "underachiever" by authority figures, Bart rides an academic rollercoaster, his grades, running the Loop-the-Loop from "F" to "D-" and back again. But he can be ingenious when the chips are down—long as his ingenuity's not applied to anything school-related. He once learned portions of the Talmud to help reunite his idol, Krusty the Clown, with his father, Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky. Once, after an incident where Bart unleashed a surf wave across the school damaging property (and also saving Ned Flanders, on fire at the time), he was given an experimental drug for Attention Deficit Disorder called Focusyn, causing his intellectual potential to reach its maximum, to the extent he was even capable of tutoring a Navajo boy. Unfortunately, the drug also shortly thereafter drove him paranoid as a side effect, where he started sensing Major League Baseball's actually spying on them with a satellite, ended up going beserk when the prospect of being taken off Focusyn became apparent, sneaking into Fort Fragg, stealing keys to one of its tanks, causing a wake of destruction by driving in the process, and later used its cannon to blow away a MLB satellite, proving his suspicions correct.[12]

Although he gets into endless trouble and is sometimes shallow and selfish, Bart also exhibits many qualities of high integrity. He, on a few occasions, helped the love life of his school Principal and his teacher, despite the fact he often terrorizes them, and he often befriends outcasts like Milhouse. One example of his quasi sense of honor is when Bart stands up for Ralph Wiggum at the cost of peer popularity.[21] He was once sent to a juvenile detention center when he played a serious prank involving faux wedding gifts and a fake wedding.[22] He also has legitimate guilt, whenever he gets either Krabappel or Principal Skinner fired, especially if it wasn't his intention to do so. Like in the former case where his plan on getting her laid back by spiking her drink backfired when she ended up getting herself fired,[23] and the latter case where his dog ended up in the ventilation shafts and got trapped along with Willie when he intended to use Santa's Little Helper for show and tell.[24]

Appearance

Bart's natural red hair

Bart has yellow/blond spiky hair, although it's actually naturally pale red (but it stays yellow when he's out in the sun). He wears an orange short-sleeved shirt, blue short pants, and blue-white shoes. In some of the earlier series, he's seen wearing a light blue short-sleeved shirt. He sometimes wears his "lucky" red baseball cap and often carries around his skateboard or a slingshot. In the winter, he wears long pants with a jacket. On special events, Bart wears a dark blue suit with matching shorts or pants with a purple tie with his hair sometimes combed and parted in the middle.

Alter Egos & Aliases

Bart sprays graffiti around Springfield using the name "El Barto", and his superhero alter-ego's Bartman. He called himself Cupcake Kid[25] when Homer became Pieman. Bart's also known as "The Devil in Blue Shorts"[26] by the organizers of the Teacher of the Year Awards, but he was believed to be an urban legend.

Relationships

Non-canon

The contents of this article or section are considered to be non-canon and therefore may not have actually happened or existed.

Treehouse of Horror

In Treehouse of Horror VII, Bart learns he has a twin brother named Hugo.

Future

As with other characters, his future follows no defined and logical pattern and simply changes to suit the episode. At the age of 18, Bart's a senior at Springfield High School. He styles his hair and wears an earring. He speaks three languages, apparently one being armpit noises, and one's hinted to be French. He pursues a relationship with a girl named Jenda who denies his proposal because he doesn't have a steady career plan. As a result, Bart pursues a career at the Kwik-E-Mart: Whether he kept the job's not mentioned. After saving Mr. Burns from a robbery, he's awarded a scholarship to Yale, meant to go to Lisa. He gives the scholarship back to her so she doesn't have to suffer a bleak future with Milhouse.
At the age of 25, he's a building demolisher and vehicle crusher, and also attends law school. He's more kind in general, as opposed to his modern-day disposition. At age 32, he's taken to the hospital after eating too many fish logs. He seems to have lost his building demolishing company and works at a construction site. He got the "Mother" tattoo Marge prevented him from getting, as well as a tattoo of Krusty the Clown on his chest. He receives a digestive tract transplant from Uter Zorker which saves his life.
At age 40, he's a poor guitarist and alcoholic who dropped out of the DeVry Institute. He lives in a ratty beach house alongside Ralph, the only other member of Bart's band. He's addicted to a form of drug, likely marijuana. He helps Lisa, President, get out of debt with other countries. In return, Lisa legalizes the use of cannabis.
At age 50, Bart appears to have straightened up and graduated law school, because he's Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At the age of 70, he lives at the Springfield Retirement Castle with Milhouse.[27] At the age of 83, he finds true love, and dies one minute later (according to Professor Frink). Marge also imagined Bart being a sleazy male stripper.

Trivia

Behind the Laughter

Creation

Matt Groening first conceived the Simpson family in the lobby of James L. Brooks' office. He was called in to pitch a series of animated shorts, and intended to present his Life in Hell series. When he realized animating Life in Hell will force him to rescind publication rights for his life's work, Groening decided to go in another direction. He hurriedly sketched out his version of a dysfunctional family, and named the characters after various members of his own family, substituting "Bart" for his own name, because he decided it will have been too obvious for him to have named the character Matt. Bart made his debut with the rest of the Simpsons clan April 19 1987 in the Tracey Ullman short "Good Night". The name "Bart"'s an anagram of the word "brat". Groening conceived Bart as an extreme version of the typical misbehaving child character, merging all of the negative traits of characters like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn into one person. Groening's older brother Mark provided most of the inspiration for Bart. Groening also said he found the premise of Dennis the Menace disappointing and was inspired to create a character actually a menace.

The name of Bart was originally going to be "Mort". However, this was changed during the planning stage.

Voice Catchphrases

Nancy Cartwright originally auditioned for the role of Lisa, but soon thought that her voice was too deep for Lisa. Matt Groening let her try out for the part, and upon hearing her read, gave her the job on the spot.
Bart's catchphrase "Eat My Shorts" was an ad-lib by Cartwright in one of the original table readings, harking back to an incident when she was at college. His other catchphrases included "¡Ay, caramba!" and "Don't have a cow man!" - the former being his first words after seeing Homer and Marge 'enjoying themselves' in bed - but these dropped out of use as the series progressed (as mentioned in "Summer of 4 Ft. 2", when Bart complains that Lisa stole his line). Whenever he introduces himself, he often says, "I'm Bart Simpson, who the hell are you?"

Reception

In 1998, Time magazine selected Bart as 46th of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century — the only fictional character to make the list. He had previously appeared on the cover the December 31, 1990 edition. Both Bart and Lisa ranked #11 in TV Guide's "Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time".

During the show's early years, Bart was rebellious and frequently escaped without punishment, which led some parents' groups and conservative spokespeople to believe he provided a poor role model for children. This prompted George H. W. Bush to rally, "We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons.", to which Bart replied with "Hey, we're just like the Waltons. We're praying for an end to the Depression, too."

Bart's catchphrases, "¡Ay, caramba!", "Don't have a cow, man!" and "Eat my shorts!" were featured on t-shirts in the early days of the show's run. The latter two phrases were rarely actually spoken on the show itself until after they became popular through merchandise, and the use of many of these catchphrases has declined in recent seasons. The use of catchphrase-based humor was mocked in the episode "Bart Gets Famous" in which Bart gets famous on the Krusty show for saying the line "I didn't do it."

In his book Planet Simpson, Chris Turner describes Bart as a nihilist. Bart's character traits of rebelliousness and disrespect for authority have been likened to that of America's founding fathers, rendering him an updated version of American icons Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, rolled into one.
Bart is the most depicted Simpsons character on various memorabilia such as toys, books, comics, T-shirts, car decals, and even graffiti art. Bart, and other Simpsons characters, appeared in numerous commercials for Butterfinger candy bars from 1990–2001, with the slogan "Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!". This association was parodied in an episode when he discovered that he was in a TV commercial when he was a baby; Bart says that he doesn't remember being in a commercial, then holds up a Butterfinger and eats it. Bart briefly appears in the entrance video used by World Wrestling Entertainment Superstar Shawn Michaels Bart has appeared in several other shows. He is featured in the South Park episode "Cartoon Wars Part II". He is not referred to by name, nor do any of the characters react to him as if he were a well known personality, but the character specifically mentions the events of "The Telltale Head" when Eric Cartman asks him to name the "most badass thing" he has done.

Bart's allergic to cauliflower,[28] butterscotch, imitation butterscotch, glow-in-the-dark monster make-up[5] and shrimp.[29] However, Bart was seen eating shrimp before[30] and once stated he "ate so much shrimp".[31] so it's unknown why he was allergic to shrimp.